Cyclo, the first and largest biological ship of its kind, is dying. A small crew of mercenaries have handed over the rights to their life to document the death of the ship, but the abandoned ship is anything but abandoned―one girl has been left behind.

Hana has known nothing but the isolation of a single room and the secret that has kept her there for seventeen years. When she meets Fennec, the boy assigned to watch her, she realizes that there is a world she has yet to experience but she is doomed to never meet.

When crew members begin mysteriously dying, Hana and Fenn realize that they are racing against the death of the ship to find a way to survive―unless someone kills them even before Hana’s truly had a chance to live.

1) What is on your desk or where you write? What do you need to write? Do you have a writer’s survival kit?

Right now? An air plant inside a glass globe. A tape dispenser in the shape of a gold quail. A glass paperweight, and an empty mug that once had my morning coffee!

2) What is your writing process? Are you a plotter or a panster? Which do you prefer: drafting or revising?

I am a plotter. I need to know the end before I write the beginning. But I pants the scenes.

3) What is your number one writing tip?

There is so much good advice out there, but none of it works unless you are super enthusiastic about your idea. Be in love with your story, and it will get you through the tough revisions, the saggy middle, and the doubt.

4) Describe you book in 5 words or less

Secret space girl is abandoned.

5) A book goes through a lot of different versions and rounds of editing before it’s complete. What are some “fun facts” or behind the scenes info you can share about the characters from your book or the world you created for it that may or may not have made it to the final draft of the book?

So I had to create artificial gravity on the ship, and so I made it so Cyclo spin quickly enough that a gravitational force could be felt on the ship. BUT! I forgot that people would have to walk on the ship not on the flat side, like the flat side of a rotating frisbee, but on the inside edge. I ended having to change a lot of scenes because of that!

6) Who was your favorite character to write and who gave you the most trouble?

I loved writing Portia’s character. To write about another humanoid race was pretty cool! Hana was probably the hardest to write. She has a lot of complicated aspects of her personality I had to explore.

7) What scene from the book are you most proud of (because of how you handled the atmosphere, characters, dialogue, etc)?

The early interactions between Hana and the crew were very hard to write, but also the most fun. In many ways, Hana is civilized, and she’s completely uncivilized. Seeing her meet people for the first time was all funny, weird, and also cringey.

8) What is your favorite quote from the book and why? This can range from funny to poignant or it could just make you sound super suave or clever.

“We are ash and stars.” I have it on a swag button!

Lydia Kang is an author of young adult fiction, poetry, and narrative non-fiction. She graduated from Columbia University and New York University School of Medicine, completing her residency and chief residency at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. She is a practicing physician who has gained a reputation for helping fellow writers achieve medical accuracy in fiction. Her poetry and non-fiction have been published in JAMA, The Annals of Internal Medicine, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Great Weather for Media. She believes in science and knocking on wood, and currently lives in Omaha with her husband and three children.